


Home for the Holidays

by one_more_offbeat_anthem



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Christmas, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Inspired by Hallmark Christmas Movies, Light Angst, Mechanic Dean Winchester, Professor Castiel (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:08:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28218228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/one_more_offbeat_anthem/pseuds/one_more_offbeat_anthem
Summary: When his best friend Castiel’s brother passes and Cas becomes the guardian of his nephew Jack, Dean’s invited to help put on the perfect Christmas for the kiddo. The only problem? Dean’s kinda-sorta secretly in love with Cas.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 13
Kudos: 156
Collections: Destiel LifeMark Bang





	Home for the Holidays

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, I'm so excited to share my fic for the Destiel Lifemark Bang 2020! The challenge was to take a Hallmark/Lifetime/other cheesy holiday movie and make it destiel! This was a reallllly fun bang to take part in, because y'all know how much I love smooshy Christmas fics. 
> 
> Props to my betas kittimau, goddess-of-the-nerds, and celestialsilhouette :) 
> 
> Also, be sure to check out the rest of the fics in the collection! Posting is Dec 21-24, so there'll be more coming! I'm just impatient xP 
> 
> if you like this, i post more stuff here sometimes and also on [my tumblr](https://one-more-offbeat-anthem.tumblr.com) :)

_ Oh, there’s no place like home for the holidays… and no matter how far away you roam: if you want to be happy in a million ways, for the holidays you can’t beat home sweet home! _

Cas turned the radio down and his gaze toward Dean. “So, how’s your Christmas been so far?”

Dean shrugged, lifting his glass of whiskey to his lips. “I’ve had worse. The company’s pretty good, though.”

Dean wasn’t kidding. The past few days had been downright magical. He’d been doing his best, hadn’t he? He’d kept up a good face, a jovial stance, as he’d helped Cas put on the perfect Christmas for his nephew, Jack. 

\-----------------------------------

_ Dean smiled at the music he could hear filtering through his best friend’s front door. Cast had always been the type to go all out on holidays, and Christmas was no exception. He could remember when they had been roommates in college and how Cas had decorated their apartment. Junior year, Dean had memorably woken up on November first with a horrible post-Halloween hangover and covered in tinsel.  _

_ Yeah, Cas was fun.  _

_ Dean had barely raised his fist to knock on the door when it swung open to reveal a short, blonde-haired boy with a broad, gap-toothed smile.  _

_ “Uncle Cas!” Jack, called down the hall, “Dean is here!” _

_ “I know.” Cas appeared, coming out of his kitchen. “I heard his car.” He smiled at Dean. “How are you?” _

_ “Better, now that I’m here.” Dean walked past Jack and pulled Cas into a hug. “Missed you, man.” _

_ “You saw me just last week.” But Cas laughed. _

_ Dean released him and turned back toward Jack. “And how are you? Glad to be on break from school?” _

_ Jack nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah! But Uncle Cas is making me practice reading still.” _

_ “He can read Dr. Seuss books all by himself,” Cas said, a note of pride in his voice. _

_ “That’s excellent, kiddo.”  _

\-----------------------------------

Only eight months ago (how had the time been both so long and so short?), Cas’s older brother, Michael, had passed in a car wreck, leaving behind little Jack. The social workers had some concerns about whether Cas, a busy English professor, could care for Jack, but Cas was well on his way to proving them wrong.

It helped, probably, that Dean lived only fifteen minutes away and was almost always at Cas’s house, if not every day then every other day. They had been nearly joined at the hip since college, and then he had invited Dean to spend Christmas with him and Jack. 

The festivities of Jack’s picture-perfect Christmas had nearly flown by, in a way. They made gingerbread houses...

\-----------------------------------

_ “Jack, try not to drop the candy on the floor,” Cas chided gently. _

_ “Sorry, Uncle Cas,” but Jack was too entranced in carefully making a path up to his house out of M&M’s to really pay attention. _

_ It probably didn’t help that Dean kept accidentally dropping candy on the floor, too, but after a couple of choice glares from Cas, he said to Jack, “C’mon, kiddo, let’s clean this up. Don’t want your uncle getting mad.” _

_ Cas had frowned slightly at Dean, but his eyes betrayed a fond smile as Dean got on his knees to help Jack. Once they were seated back at the table, Dean reached across the table and snagged one of Cas’s pieces of licorice and popped it in his mouth, winking at him.  _

\-----------------------------------

Visited Santa at the mall…

\-----------------------------------

_ “It’s not that bad,” Dean said, kneeling down next to Jack. “Santa’s not scary.” _

_ “Promise?” Jack looked between Dean and Cas. _

_ “We promise, kiddo.” Dean patted Jack’s shoulder and got a watery, gap-toothed smile in return. He let Cas lead him up to sit in Santa’s lap, and then Cas came back to stand next to Dean while an “elf” took Jack’s picture. _

_ “He always listens to you so much better,” Cas lamented. “I don’t know why.”  _

_ “Prolly because I give him more candy.” _

_ “Dean!”  _

_ “You two have such a cute son,” the lady in line next to them simpered, and Cas reddened slightly but didn’t correct her, so Dean didn’t, either.  _

\-----------------------------------

Decorated the Christmas tree…

\-----------------------------------

_ “Gosh,” Cas said, “so many of these ornaments are from when I was a kid… My brothers and I used to love celebrating Christmas.”  _

_ Dean couldn’t quite relate - he and his brother Sam had spent most of their childhoods moving from town to town in their dad’s beat-up car after their mom died, but Cas had two older brothers and a mostly happy family. _

_ Sam was on a beach vacation with his fiancé. Their dad was probably dead in a ditch somewhere. It would make sense.  _

_ “Which one do you want to put on first?” Cas asked Jack. Dean was far too preoccupied with detangling tinsel to hear the rest of the conversation, but when he eventually rejoined it, Cas looked at him and stifled a laugh. _

_ “What’s up?” Dean asked. _

_ “Dean! You’re all sparkly!” Jack pointed at him, delighted. _

_ Dean looked down at his shirt. “You’re not wrong,” he said before crossing to Cas and boldly hugging him. “Now Cas is sparkly, too.” _

_ “Hey!” Cas laughed. _

\-----------------------------------

Made pancakes for breakfast this morning…

\-----------------------------------

_ Cas lowered the volume on the radio in his kitchen, turning to his nephew Jack, who was perched at the bar. “Regular milk or chocolate milk?” _

_ “Chocolate milk!” Jack grinned at him toothily.  _

_ “Excited for Christmas tomorrow?” Dean asked.  _

_ “It’s the best holiday,” Jack said. _

_ “I agree.” Dean glanced over at Cas, who prepared Jack’s milk with a smile on his face.  _

_ Dean turned away from Jack, busying himself at the stove with the pancakes, which had chocolate chips in them (of course). Cas stepped around him to get another coffee mug, brushing their hips together.  _

_ “Hey,” Dean said, realizing a second too late that his voice was soft and warm. _

_ “Hey yourself,” Cas replied, his eyes crinkling in the corners, and Dean felt a tightness in his chest. _

\-----------------------------------

And they set out milk and cookies for Santa before tucking Jack into bed, of course. It had taken a bit of goading to convince Jack that he had to go to sleep for Santa to come, but it eventually worked, and now Dean and Cas were relaxing with whiskey in front of Cas’s fireplace with only the Christmas tree’s twinkling lights on. 

“How are you?” Dean asked, his voice going soft. “I know you were worried about making this Christmas perfect for Jack, as if you weren’t already doing an amazing job…”

“I just… got scared, in the beginning of having Jack, that I was going to be a bad guardian. And I was bent out of shape over Michael…” Cas sighed and shrugged. “It’s better now. Since classes ended at the university, I’ve been able to spend more time with him. Thank you, by the way, for all of your help this semester.”

“Cas, you’ve already thanked me a thousand times over, and it’s no hardship. You know I’d do anything for you.”

“I do.” There was a curiously sad smile on Cas’s face as he stared into his glass of whiskey before asking, “But don’t you ever… get lonely? Wish you had your own life?”

“What do you mean?” Dean took a sip of his drink.

“I mean, there was that woman at the mall, who assumed Jack was our son. Don’t you wish you could have a family?”

“I guess.” 

Dean hadn’t thought about it that much. The one person he had wanted - had  _ always  _ wanted - was woefully unavailable, because his name was Cas, and while they spent a fair amount of their waking hours together, Cas was Cas - clever, too handsome for his own damn good, and inexplicably charming, in his own awkward way. Cas was the kind of guy who dedicated his time to giving his students extra credit, gardening and donating the produce, and trying to have the perfect Christmas for his recently orphaned nephew.

Dean was… himself. He couldn’t imagine himself with Cas because he wouldn’t let himself, and because he knew he was  _ nothing  _ like the significant others from Cas’s faculty circle. Dean had met them once at a departmental party Cas had hosted and invited him to. Dean had felt totally out of place with his flannel, work boots, and calloused mechanics' hands, surrounded by chinos, suit jackets, and neatly Windsor-knotted ties. 

Cas was practically a walking sweater with elbow patches half the time. 

Not now, though. Now he was leaned back in the armchair, wearing loose flannel pajama pants and a sweatshirt with a stretched-out collar from their ill-fated intramural rugby days, smiling at Dean over his whiskey. 

Except it was that same small, sad smile.

“I’ve thought about getting back out there,” Cas said softly. “But I haven’t dated in years… it would be hard.”

“I feel ya.” 

Long gone were the days where Dean tried to fill his void (well, first it had been his sexuality crisis, then the void) with random pickups at the bar, although he wasn’t sure that counted as dating. 

“Gabriel,“ Cas’s other brother, the not-dead one, “has been trying to goad me into getting one of those dating apps or whatever, but I just don’t have the time… and I’m not sure I would meet anyone good.”

“I don’t trust those things,” Dean said. “I mean, why not meet the old-fashioned way? Make friends first, or see someone across the bar?” 

“Gabriel says he’s going to set me up on a blind date in the new year if I don’t ‘get my act together.’” There was another Cas-ism, those damn air quotes, and Dean felt a clench in his gut.

“That should be-”

“Terrible? Yeah. I know. But at least it’ll be over, and then I’ll be free to meet someone, I guess. Although,” Cas took a deep swallow of his whiskey, “I wonder sometimes if it isn’t too late.”

“I like to hope it’s not,” Dean said, “because then it would be too late for me, too.”

They shared a laugh at that, but Dean’s heart wasn’t really in it. 

“Jack’s going to have a great day tomorrow,” Cas finally whispered.

“I know he will.” Dean set his glass on the coffee table, “I’ve gotta get something from the Impala. I’ll be right back.” 

“Mmm-kay.” Cas smiled at him, sleepy and soft around the edges. “I’ll be here.”

Dean grabbed his coat and hat off the hook by the front door and headed out. There was actually nothing in the Impala, but if he stayed in that room one more second, he was gonna lose his shit, watching Cas lounge by the fire, looking so comfortable and talking about dating, about finding other people to date.

“He was never gonna go for you anyway,” Dean muttered to himself. They were thirty-two now, they had been best friends for fourteen years. If there had been a time to make a move, it would have been eons ago. He was just gonna stay outside until the awful flipping of his stomach stopped, and then he could put on a thick coat of false Christmas cheer and make it through going to bed and tomorrow. 

Dean must have stayed out too long, losing track of his thoughts as the snowflakes fell, because he heard footsteps coming down Cas’s front steps, and then there was Cas in front of him, with his coat over his pajamas. Cas hadn’t even bothered to put real shoes on—he was wearing slippers. 

“You alright?” Cas asked, coming to stand next to Dean and lean on the Impala. His cheeks were already turning pink, even though he’d been outside for less than a minute.

“Yeah. Just… thinking.”

“About?”

“Uh...” Dean frantically thought of a non-weird way he could phrase,  _ I don’t want you to start dating again because I’m in love with you _ . “About our conversation. Inside. Just now.”

“The whole dating thing? It’s not that complicated…” Cas frowned. “I just get lonely. Don’t you?” 

Dean shrugged. He had gotten used to the whole “being lonely” thing. He had Cas, his brother Sam sometimes, his buddies at the auto shop he worked at, and the regulars at his favorite bar.

Except Cas didn’t need him. Seeing Cas was the highlight of Dean’s day, but it wasn’t Cas’s, it  _ wasn’t _ , and he needed to accept that. 

“You don’t have to be lonely,” Cas said, his blue eyes wide and open. “You can go be happy, find somebody.”

“I don’t—“ Dean choked out, now really hedged in. “I don’t  _ want  _ to go out and find someone.”

“I do.”

“Well, good for you,” Dean snapped, more bitterness in his voice than he intended. 

“Dean, what’s…?” Cas didn’t look angry, just concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t want to go out and find someone because the only person I’m interested in isn’t interested in me, and I’ve spent nearly a decade in love with them. At this point I just have to accept that they’ll get a happy ending and I won’t.”

Dean could hear his voice rising, slightly hysterical. He wasn’t having this conversation. He  _ wasn’t.  _

“Maybe you should tell them, Dean,” Cas said, tilting his head, and  _ fuck,  _ Dean was going to lose it, wasn’t he?

“That person is  _ you _ , you idiot!” 

Yep, there it was.

Cas’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, and then morphed into a scowl, “So you don’t want me to try dating? That’s the whole reason you’re out here?”

“Yes!” Dean threw his hands up into the air, before striding away from the Impala, down Cas’s driveway to the road where tall snow drifts were piling up. 

Cas followed him. “You can’t just walk away from this conversation, Dean.”

“Really?” Dean whirled around to face his best friend, “I can’t? Why not? I just told you how I feel, and your response was a  _ clear  _ rejection. I was never going to tell you, so that I didn’t have to deal with  _ this,  _ but you just had to—“ 

“I can’t believe this—“ Cas looked like he was resisting the urge to push Dean into the snowbank, “I can’t believe you’re telling me this  _ now _ , after  _ years _ . You could have told me,“ he started sputtering, really losing his composure. “Anytime. And you choose  _ now,  _ when I’m just trying to do my best, and you choose to be jealous, and—“

“You could just say no. You could just say you’re  _ not interested. _ ” Dean snapped back. He turned around, pulling his hat down over his ears, which were freezing as the snowflakes swirled down. He was going to go back inside, and he was going to go into the guest room and go to sleep, and then he was going to pretend that this conversation had never happened.

Or maybe he was going to ship himself to a remote island. The shipping costs would probably be a bitch, though.

He heard footsteps behind him, and then Cas called out, “Dean.”

Dean kept walking, hands stuffed in his pockets.

“Dean!” A pause, and then, “Dean, turn around. Listen to me.”

Dean whirled around, “Why should I? Give me a good reason, just one, after you just stomped all over my—“

He was shocked into silence by Cas moving forward, taking Dean’s face in his hands and kissing him. His hands were freezing and his lips were chapped and Dean’s brain stopped fully functioning and—

Cas pulled away, breathless. “You never let me finish. I was going to say that“--he faltered--“I was going to say that I wish you had told me sooner so we could have more time, we could have had years, and we didn’t have to feel this way, all—“

“Hey,” Dean cut him off, reaching a hand out, “I’m not leaving, not anytime soon, or ever. Not if you want me, too.” It felt nice to be able to take Cas’s hand in his own, like this,  _ finally,  _ lacing their fingers together, and Dean could have lived in this moment forever, except—“It’s cold as shit out here, Cas, let’s go back inside.”

Once they were back inside, in the kitchen, and Cas was getting them more whiskey to help warm them up, Dean leaned against the counter to face Cas. “So we coulda had years, huh?”

Cas frowned slightly at him, but his eyes were smiling, “Don’t let it go to your head.”

“I vote you still go on that blind date so that we can make fun of the guy afterward.”

“How about this.” Cas pulled him in, pressing a kiss to his forehead as he handed him his whiskey, “How about  _ we  _ just go on a date?” 

“I could get behind that.” 

\-----------------------------------

“Uncle Cas!”

Dean woke up the next morning to an overexcited kindergartener bouncing on his— no,  _ Cas’s _ bed, and he sat up blearily, “Merry Christmas, kiddo.”

“Why are you in Uncle Cas’s bed?” Jack asked.

“For, uh… warmth?” Dean rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. While the activities of last night had been strictly PG-13, they weren’t exactly child-friendly and were standing out in his mind as the foundation of some excellent spank-bank fantasies for later. 

Jack nodded solemnly, “It does get cold sometimes. Uncle Cas doesn’t like the heater. Can we wake him up?”

“Absolutely.” Dean’s mouth curved into a smirk as he thought of all the times he had to wake Cas up in college. “Have you ever pulled his eyelids up?”

“He  _ hates  _ that.”

“Okay, maybe you should just jump on him instead.”

Jack didn’t need to be asked twice. He flopped his tiny form over Cas’s body, and Cas woke up with a groan, before rolling over and glaring at Dean. “Did you put him up to this?”

“…Maybe,” Dean replied, trying to look innocent. 

Later, sitting on Cas’s couch with a mug of hot chocolate, watching Cas smile at his nephew as Jack played with his new toys, Dean felt like maybe, he finally had everything he needed. 

_ Oh, there’s no place like home for the holidays… and no matter how far away you roam: if you want to be happy in a million ways, for the holidays you can’t beat home sweet home! _


End file.
